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Is there still anything to live for? Is anything worth pursuing, apart from money and success? With religion no longer widely seen as a guide to life, what can take its place? There is a widespread view that we are genetically programmed to behave selfishly, and our consumer culture is premised on the idea that the pursuit of self-interest is the only way of life that makes any sense. Yet many people have an uneasy feeling that they may be missing out on something which would give their lives a significance they currently lack. Peter Singer has interwoven philosophical arguments with his own experiences in the animal and environmental movements to produce a book that is both personal and universal. While not downplaying our evolutionary inheritance, he shows that the modern form of selfishness as a way of life has cultural rather than natural origins, and that it is both individually and collectively self-defeating. Along the way he provides a concise and accessible account of philosophical speculation about ethics, discussing thinkers as diverse as Aristotle, Jesus, Rousseau, Adam Smith, and Kant, and he ends by presenting examples of ways in which living ethically has made people's lives more fulfilling and meaningful.

Social ethics --- Ethics --- Self-interest --- eigenbelang --- Social problems --- Sociology --- Conduct of life --- Self --- Economic man --- NIMBY syndrome --- Deontology --- Ethics, Primitive --- Ethology --- Moral philosophy --- Morality --- Morals --- Philosophy, Moral --- Science, Moral --- Philosophy --- Values --- intérêt personnel --- intérêt personnel